Especially in Western cultures, an engagement ring is a ring indicating that the person wearing it is engaged to be married. In the United Kingdom, and North America, engagement rings are traditionally worn only by women, and rings can feature gemstones.

second hand

hand marking seconds on a timepiece

from a source of previously owned goods; "I prefer to buy second hand"

An extra hand in some watches and clocks that moves around to indicate the seconds

an intermediate person; used in the phrase `at second hand'; "he could learn at second hand from books"

second hand engagement rings – Secondhand Bride

Secondhand Bride (McKettrick Cowboys Trilogy #3)

Dear Reader:Willow is a novel from early in my career, and it was originally shorter than many of my other historical romances. Now, I’m delighted to be able to share this brand-new edition with you. I’ve taken the opportunity to expand Willow to include the subplots, love scenes, and deeper characterization that are possible with a longer book. I hope you enjoy reading this retelling as much as I have enjoyed visiting these characters and this story once again.In 1883, the railroad had only recently come to Montana Territory, and outlaws still lurked in the hills. Willow Gallagher, who spent her early childhood in an outlaw camp until her father finally found her, is torn by divided loyalties. Newly married to handsome railroad baron Gideon Marshall, she finds fiery passion in Gideon’s embrace, until she discovers he is on a mission . . . a mission to capture Willow’s outlaw brother, Steven. Now Willow must choose—betray her brother, or risk the love she has found with Gideon, the love she has dreamed of all her life, to save Steven. It is a choice that could break her heart. . . .May you be blessed,Linda Lael Miller

Arthur Briguglio

In Memoriam: Arthur Briguglio
December 29, 1921 – November 24, 2008

Arthur Briguglio was a great man.

It’s difficult to really capture the richness of Artie’s life, especially when my exposure to his formative years, even the majority of his life, is second- or even third-hand. So, the story I’m about to tell you is not about a husband, or a father, or a brother in arms. It’s a story of affection and of admiration, unique to the relationship he and I had. It’s a story about my grandfather, whose inclination for storytelling I seem to have inherited.

Although his drivers license and every form of government identification says differently, Arthur Briguglio was born on December 29, 1921. One of four brothers growing up in the upper east side of New York City, what stories I’ve heard about my grandfather’s youth generally can be categorized as those of mischief. While we’ve all heard about Artie and his brothers getting into typical boy-centered mishaps, my personal favorite is the time when Pop was caught stealing from a street merchant and was, in turn, walked home by a police officer to talk to his father. When asked what Artie stole, the officer said, "fruit." If you could hold Pop back from laughing while telling this tale, you would eventually hear about how his father went ballistic. Not over the theft, necessarily – Art’s father owned a fruit stand, and here was his son swiping fruit from across town.

It was the type of mischief that we can color in Depression-era sepia tones and pass off as mild and distinctly Artie, which is why I guess it felt okay to everyone to find humor in these stories and let Pop reminisce about them often.

One of the most striking memories I have of my grandfather’s youth is the story he told me about being forced to stop going to school in 9th grade so he could drive a truck to earn money for his family. He told me he cried when he couldn’t go to school any more, and you could always hear the sadness in his voice as he spoke of it. Still, by the time I started to know him, it would be unthinkable to call Pop uneducated. Here was a man whose knowledge and vocabulary far exceeded my own, who had a dictionary covered in brown paper and worn thin from his looking up words in the Wall Street Journal or Barrons he was always devouring. A man who went to radio school at night, who taught me to read the stock pages when I was 9, and who I was never able to beat at checkers no matter how hard I tried, even in his final days.

Always willing to bend your ear about supercolliders, the telegraph, or some other interesting thing he read about in the paper or saw on a PBS television special, Artie was a fountain of information. And just in case you missed something of interest, there was always the occasional Wall Street Journal article clipping that would arrive in the mail to let you know Artie was thinking about you. Artie was both educated by and full of life.

His family knows well the story of how Art and Emma met. We know it well because you never heard a story just once with Pop. However, if you were patient and listened carefully as he weaved through each version, you learned something new each and every time.

A Motor Mac, First Class in World War II, Art spent most of his time in the Pacific theater on the repair ship the USS Samar (ARG-11). However, just before his deployment on the Samar, Art found himself stationed Philadelphia and in between ships. One night, some of his Navy buddies played a trick on him and sent him in search of a movie playing at 14th and Broad, or at least that’s what he told Emma when they met on the street in March of 1945. Emma was walking from City Hall on Market Street, while Art, skinny in his Navy uniform, followed her around for a while before asking where to find "The Fighting Lady." Pop liked to joke about Emma being the fighting lady, perhaps because they never actually made it to that movie. Instead, they saw "To Have and Have Not" on their first date together, a movie full of the idyllic romance of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, which I find poetic and telling about their 63 years together.

After they met, Art and Emma went on dates every other night, sometimes to the USO canteen for dancing and donuts, each time Art making sure to escort Emma safely home. Often, they skipped the final midnight trolley that would take them across town, opting instead to walk the long distance from Darby to Yeadon, hand in hand, talking about marriage and children, planning their future life together.

1945 was, of course, the middle of World War II. Art spent the majority of his time in the Navy at war in the Pacific, specifically Bougainvillea and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, fixing the injectors, generators, and regulators of diesel ship engines. While in the Navy, Artie passed through the Panama Canal twice, picked up colorful phrases like "You eat what the monkey eat

A Diamond's Tale

This is the story of a very old ring. My Mom took care of her elderly Aunt for years, she had left the farm to marry a MUCH older man here in Chicago.The were only married a few years and he passed away, she never remarried. After she passed my Mother got her engagement and wedding rings. The wedding band was engraved "To Anne, July 22, 1907".
The lawyer handling her estate, joked as he gave her the ring and the $800.00 receipt from Tiffany’s that "you couldn’t even get the box for that now". My generous Mother gave me the Platinum rings, and I loved them because they were old and pretty, but mostly because my Mom gave them to me. This past Christmas I wore them to my daughter’s, where we all struggled with our first Christmas without her. As Mothers do, I helped my daughter in the kitchen that day, serving food, cleaning up, putting trash out. When we got home that night I was horrified to see I had lost the diamond from the engagement ring. I was too upset to even speak! Where did I loose it, down the garbage disposal? Out with the shrimp tails? In the snow and ice and salt on the street? Dom called them and they searched everywhere. Her SIL and BIL were spending the night and helped to look. I spent the night crying, I had lost a precious gift from my Mother. Dom headed over the next morning to go through every bit of garbage. Shana’s overnight guests were leaving and dumped the icy water out of their cooler onto the street and headed home. When they got to their house they opened the cooler to dry it out, and there stuck in a bit of ice in the corner of the cooler…………..my diamond! I just got the ring back from Tiffany’s in New York where it was sent to be remounted. So thank you, Mom, I know you helped to give me my diamond a second time. Believe in miracles!